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by Lincoln Ficek and Josh Miller

The day began early as we had to leave the hotel at 8:45 am for lectures. As we exited the elevator, we couldn’t help but notice the aroma of waffles. We loaded our trays with the aforementioned waffles along with fruit, scrambled eggs, and juice. The hotel also had lunchmeats for breakfast, which we are still getting used to. We next boarded the bus for a short drive to the German Olympic Sports Confederation. Christian Sachs was the first lecturer. He discussed the sports legacy of the divided Germany and Olympic bids in Germany. His current position is Head of Sports at the Berlin Office of Sports.

He began his lecture by discussing the history of Germany after WWII. The Federal Republic of Germany was controlled by England, the United States, and France while the German Democratic Republic was ran by the Soviet Union. Political ideologies and emphasis on sport were not consistent. The German Democratic Republic used sport to gain international recognition. They sacrificed integrity for success, as doping was widespread. They did dominate the Federal Republic of Germany in terms of medal count. The GDR also focused on individual sports rather than team sports. Individuals could win multiple medals in sports such as swimming and track and field. Scouting to find future star athletes began at a young age. Doctors examined children to predict what sport they would be best at. While still a powerhouse, after its unification in 1989, Germany has not had as much Olympic success. They fare better in the Winter Olympics than the Summer Olympics, with luge and bobsled being major reasons.

We then went around the room and told Christian about ourselves and the topic of eSports arose. He said that they were trying to decide whether or not they, as an organization should focus on it. In the debate we talked about whether or not it should be a “sport”. Does the hand eye coordination and movement of hand make it enough of a physical activity? We also talked a little bit about the professional sport scene in eSports and how some of them are making more money than some actual athletes in lower leagues. Interestingly, Christian said that they used the term “sport” in the name so that they could market it to a larger audience. His explanation was that almost everyone in the world liked sports so giving video games this tag will make it grow even more.

Christian next discussed Olympic bids in Germany. Citizens of Olympic host city candidates Munich and Hamburg voted against applying for a bid. The cost of infrastructure is a big reason why. Lastly, Christian discussed the importance of sport clubs. They played a huge role in bringing the people of the now unified Germany together. The majority of funding for sports clubs is privately funded. Public funding does occur, but the clubs have total control on how to allocate the money. There are 91,000 clubs and 27 million members in Germany.

Ralf Iwan was the next lecturer. He discussed the ASPIRE experience. ASPIRE is a sport academy in Qatar. Before talking about the academy itself, he gave us some background information about Qatar. It is a steadily growing city with 240,000 Qatari nationals comprising the population. The emphasis on sport has also increased. The 2022 World Cup will be hosted there. Additionally, the city has hosted a wide variety of international sporting events including the 2006 Asia Games. Ralf next discussed ASPIRE, a boys only sport academy that includes a boarding school. It develops middle and high-school aged athletes in soccer, table tennis, sailing, track and field, and squash. It was the first sport academy in the Middle East. They expect their students to be competing in international championships. For well-roundedness, students play complementary sports.

A few of us broke off when we got dropped off in the downtown area to grab some lunch. We stopped at a place called Don Angelo’s, which was right under the TV tower in Berlin. The restaurant was Italian and had many different choices. We ended up keeping it simple and went with penne pasta with shrimp and red sauce. It was the right choice as we all agreed it was the best pasta we’d eaten in a while.

After lunch we had some downtime before visiting the refugee camp. None of us knew what to expect. We arrived at what appeared to be an abandoned school and hangar. We were then given a tour of the facility. The space was massive. Inside, there were basketball hoops, volleyball courts, ping pong tables, pool tables, foosball, a boxing ring, and a baseball field. Outside featured a basketball court and soccer field. We learned that it isn’t a refugee camp anymore. However, just a few years ago, it held over 2000 refugees. Today, most have found places to live. The facilities main purpose is to teach refugees social skills through sports. We were originally scheduled to play soccer with them. However, because it was Ramadan and most of the refugees are Muslim, there was only one to play with us. As all of us are current or former athletes, the games we played were very competitive. After the girls won a tightly contested soccer game, we moved inside to play volleyball. Here, the boys were able to get their revenge and win the volleyball series. It was much needed exercise for all of us. Sweating from playing sports rather than just being in the sun felt amazing.

Tonight was the night of the trip where we had dinner as a big group in a fancy restaurant. We went to a place called Zur Gerichtslaube, which had authentic German cuisine. We had to order off of a group menu, but the choices were still amazing. Sjoerd treated us to drinks and a full three course meal. We started with a cream of potato soup with sausage and leek in it. For the main course we had a Berlin style meatball with mashed potatoes and sweet peas.

Finally, for desert we had a scrumptious little apple cake with whipped cream on the side. The dinner was a great way to talk with some new friends we have met on this trip, who hopefully we will continue to stay close with upon returning to Columbus.

by Erin Langermeier and Mossimo Chavez

Hello! It’s Erin and Mossimo here with today’s class blog!

Today is our sixth day of the European Model of Sport trip. We traveled from Prague, Czech Republic to Berlin, Germany with a short pit stop in Dresden, Germany. We will be sharing what we learned on the walking tour in Dresden and our experience at the Berlin Olympic Stadium and team handball game.

Our first item on today’s agenda was a city walking tour in Dresden, Germany. It was about a two-hour bus ride from Prague, Czech Republic to Dresden, Germany and we all slept the whole bus ride there. Our tour started at the Dresden center opera house, which was built in 1841 and was named after the architect who constructed it, Gottfried Semper. Here is a picture of the opera house on the right.

In 1869, the Semper opera house was destroyed by a fire caused by some of the workers in the building and when it was being reconstructed, Semper created the blueprints. As you can see in the picture above there is also a statue in the middle of the square. This statue is a representation of the equestrian statue of Saxon King John, who was also known as the “professor of the throne”, because he was so intelligent and could speak several different languages.   The town square also had an old catholic church that was built in the mid 18th century.

After, we proceeded to the Courtyard, Zwinger.

Many festivities took place in this courtyard during the 17th, 18th, and 19th century. The arch with the crown on top (pictured to the left) represented one line of fortification, whereas the Semper gallery behind where we were standing represented the other line of fortification. During 1695 this location hosted the parade of gods with many unique floats and in 1710 the Courtyard, Zwinger also hosted the ladies’ tournament. Many of the structures and statues in this courtyard are composed of rich porcelain.

Our group continued on the walking tour to the garden of the residential palace located in the city. Built in 1500 but destroyed and later reconstructed, this palace was originally where King Augusta allowed his mistresses to live. Later it was passed on to the king’s son to live there with his family. The Taschenbergpalais was destroyed in World War 2 and in 1992 it was transformed into a luxurious hotel. Right across the street from the Taschenbergpalais was the palace of the king. It was destroyed by World War 2 (like many of the architecture in Dresden) then rebuilt in the years following. It was very interesting that the ceiling of one of the smaller courtyards in the palace is made of the same material as the Allianz Arena.

This old market is the home of the Church of the Holy Cross (pictured to the left), which was destroyed around 1750 by the Prussians.  When the Prussians raided the city of Dresden, the Church of the Holy Cross was one of the main pieces of architecture that they intended to destroy.  We were informed that almost all of the buildings in Dresden are post-war architecture.  Next was the other side of the palace.  Around 1539 the king’s church right outside of this palace became protestant.  King Augusta wanted to be the king of Poland and in order to do so he needed to convert himself from catholic to protestant, so he made the church protestant.

After we toured the old market, we moved onto the Procession of Princes

and the old jousting arena.

The Procession of princes is 300 feet long and consists of 35 rulers, who are all from the same family.  The order of the princes is oldest to youngest.  This was not the original version; they had to reconstruct the procession of princes, because the material they used before was starting to wear down and kept falling off the wall.  The procession of princes included Friedrich D Gebissene (1307-1324) who was also known as “Friedrich the bitten”.  This was because his mother had bit him on the neck as she left the palace for good to leave her mark and show her awful husband that she had been of the real leader of the throne. 1918 was the year of the last reigning king.  The jousting arena was used during the 16^th century.  There was a building behind us in this picture that was used as a stable and the armory was right next to the stable.  These buildings were destroyed in World War 2 and they were recreated to be a museum for people to visit.

Our last stop of the walking tour was the New Market Square which included the Church of our Lady.  The old version of this church was gothic, but the new version represented the shape of a bell.  In 1760 the church was destroyed by the Prussians.  The church was actually still standing after air raids, but it eventually collapsed two days later.  1994 was when reconstruction began and it was finished 10 years later in 2004.  The church of the New Market Square is pictured below.

After a walking city tour of Dresden and a quick lunch, we hopped back on the bus for a three hour ride to Berlin. We drove straight to the Olympiastadion from the 1936 summer Olympic games for a tour around the facility and a lecture from an Olympic historian. These games were at the height of Hitler’s reign so he used to games as propaganda to promote the views and ideas of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, also known as the Nazi Party. The original stadium was able to hold over 100,000 fans but that number has been reduced to 75,000 because of the implementation of individual seating. During the tour we were able to check out where Hitler’s balcony was where he would congratulate and shake hands with gold medal winners. Here is the view of where he and his associates would be sitting.

The final part of the stadium tour was near the Olympic torch and the engraved names of the Olympic winners in the 1936 games. Included on the list of winners is four-time gold medalist and former Buckeye, Jesse Owens. We made our way back towards the entrance of the stadium for a lecture about Jesse Owens and the importance of his success in the 1936 games. We learned about Owens’ relationships with other athletes, specifically Lutz Long and how he was disrespected by Adolf Hitler. Our lecturer showed us a couple amazing pieces of memorabilia including replica jerseys worn by both the United States team and the German team from those games as well as Luz Long’s silver medal in long jump.

After the Olympiastadion, we traveled over to a team handball game between Füchse Berlin and TuS N-Lübbecke. Similar to the Bayern Munich basketball game, the fans are very loud and were bringing the energy from the beginning of the game to the end. Back in the States I’ve never experienced a crowd atmosphere like I have at the sporting events we’ve attended here in Europe. The majority of the group has never watched handball so this was a completely new experience for all of us; trying to learn the rules on the fly and figure out what was going on. Füchse Berlin came out on top with a 26 to 20 win. Here is a picture of the Max-Schmeling-Halle arena that they play in, with a maximum capacity of around 12,000 people.

After a long day of traveling and touring Dresden and Berlin for the first time, we all grabbed dinner and were ready to rest up for the next day. That’s all for day six from Erin and Mossimo! Hope you enjoyed reading about our trip so far!

by Alyssa Hoying and Monica Velazquez-Stiak

We started off our day with a lecture and tour of one of the campuses of Charles University. Charles U was founded way back in 1348 and has a prestigious reputation throughout Europe. It has 17 different faculties which are their version of a college. What differs from American universities is that Charles’ faculties are spread out throughout the city and have very little cross over, meaning that you won’t take classes or have interaction with another faculty other than your own. The bachelor’s programs at Charles University typically take students three years to complete and some go on to do a two-year master’s program after that. What also differentiates from the American college structure is that their college education is FREE! The state universities in the Czech Republic are also more prestigious and harder to get into than their private universities. The specific college, or faculty, that we got to visit was their physical education, coaching, physical therapy, and sport management campus. This campus also trains students to be professional soldiers if they desire to study that!

If students decide to study physical education, they have to master every sport they will need to teach as a PE teacher. In the picture above, you’ll see some students preparing for their exams on track and field. Sports are separated by the year in school you’re in, so the students above are freshman since track and field is their first year sport. Each year the students will have a different sport to master and they will be tested on the basic rules of the sport and will have to be able to do the sport and getting a passing grade for it. The students in this faculty also take outdoor sport classes where they will have to travel to different areas in the Czech Republic to do sports like cross country skiing and white water rafting.

On this campus, they also have a gym very similar to the way the RPAC works at Ohio State. The gym is open to students who can get a pass for a very discounted rate. It is also open for the public to get a pass, where they will have access to cardio machines, squash courts, and an awesome rock wall! (We could only make it up so far in jeans and Birkenstock’s).

We also had the opportunity to talk with a class of first year sport management students at Charles University. Their classes for sport management were fairly similar to our sport industry major at Ohio State, but the students at Charles had to take a few more mathematics and economics courses than we do. From talking with the students, we learned how their college system does not really allow for students to be athletes simultaneously. There is no such thing as being a university student-athlete in the Czech Republic and they do not sponsor any sports teams or have any intramural teams in their faculties. Julie, one of the students we got to talk with, told us that she was a cross country skier and had to give it up so that she could go to college.

We learned a lot from the students and had a great time interacting with one another and learning about their lives, schooling, and career paths. We even got to teach them the ever famous O-H-I-O!

Our next stop on our busy day was to watch the Slavia Prague U17 soccer game. We got to the game right after the second half had started and to be honest, we weren’t quite sure what we were watching at first other than very athletic teenagers playing a great game of fútbol. However our trip planners and professors are always a step ahead of us and knew that our tour and lecture with a staff member from SK Slavia Prague would make the trip all make sense.

Coming up on our last stop of the day, we arrived at the Eden Arena – home of one of Prague’s professional soccer teams: SK Slavia Prague. The stadium was beautiful on the inside as we got to tour the facility and watch the rain fall on the field. We have been joking about how Europeans don’t mind taking the stairs up many flights, and as we moved throughout the stadium we were breaking a sweat and getting our workouts in for the day. Believe it or not… we climbed 21 flights today! Way to get our sweat on, Bucks!

The stadium holds 20,000 spectators and opened in 2010. Although the facility is rather new, the soccer club was founded in 1892 and has a strong history in the Czech Republic to this day. Something we were surprised by is that the team’s main sponsor is CFEC China, so we saw a lot of media creation and wall hangings in Chinese throughout the stadium.  As we talked with Martin Hladik, he gave us more information on the youth academy the soccer team supports. In order to keep their rich history and elite players, they put a great amount of emphasis on training their future starts from a young age. The youth academy has 600 players and 30 coaches, funded by 1 million Euros a year to work their budget around. The academy works closely with the kid’s schools to make sure they can balance both training and getting their education. The cooperation with the schools and flexibility of schedules gives the Slavia Prague players all of the tools to pursue their dreams of being professional soccer players one day!

Well that’s all from Monica and Alyssa for Day #5 of our study abroad! We are off to explore the city some more in our evening free time and go on a boat tour with the group. Goodbye from Prague.

by Austin Brizee and Alex Schoepfel

Our day began in the morning with a group breakfast at the hotel, the B&B Hotel Prague-City. I was surprised about the choices for breakfast as it consisted of mostly sandwich meats which was very different from the breakfast we had in Munich or have in America. Nonetheless, it was excellent!

We then proceeded to walk to the Hilton hotel for our first lecture of the day. Our lecturer was Michal Barda, a former Czech national handball player who played in the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Barda spoke to us about professional sports during the time of the Soviet Union and how that affected Czech sport. He began the lecture by talking to us about the political timeline the Czech Republic over the past 100 years and would later tie that into sports. A quick summary is that Czechoslovakia was founded in 1918 after World War I, annexed by Nazi Germany during the Second World War, and became part of the Soviet Eastern Bloc in 1948. After adopting communism, the ideology and way of life changed for the Czechs as education and career path development was reserved only for the working class or communist party members. Barda talked to us about sport being a “ticket” to a better life and gave a personal anecdote about his personal struggles and distaste for the ideology. This was pretty surreal to hear first hand because although we already knew about the atrocities done at the hands of communism, we literally got to listen to personal stories from a primary source rather than reading about it in a textbook! Overall, it was a great and fascinating lecture!

We then bussed over to our second lecture of the day where we were lectured by Antonin Plachy, the Chief of Education of Coaches in the Czech Republic and UEFA representative. He spoke to us about the tactical model of Czech soccer training which included steps to develop youth player abilities for the upcoming generation.

He concluded the lecture discussing the financial challenges the Czech FA and the educational materials to help coaches at the grassroots level. It was interesting to hear about their youth development academy system, as this is very different from the North American collegiate development approach. We finished the lecture by touring the Czech stadium, which was very old and unkept, and the Czech FA building. We hopped back on the bus and headed over to our walking tour, but first had a quick lunch at a local food stand.

The tour of the city started off with taking us into the Prague Castle where the Czech president has his office that overlooks the beautiful sights to the city. Inside of the castle complex we visited the cathedral called St. Vitus Cathedral and this cathedral can be seen at just about any point around the city because it sits on top of a hill. Looking at this building firsthand really set it apart from anything that I have seen before in the states because everything was so intricate with the stain glass windows and sculptures around the cathedral so you could tell this structure took years to make.

Once we went down the hill we made our way to the Valdstejnska Zahrada garden.

At this garden there were peacocks running free and there were caged owls along a back wall. This garden had great relaxing scenery that allowed us to sit back and enjoy one of the many different sights this city has to offer. From there we got the opportunity to walk across the Charles Bridge which is the oldest bridge in Prague. On our way to the bridge there was a Czech 9/11 memorial which was really cool to see one of our allies memorialize such a devastating point in American history.

This bridge started its construction in 1357, but now finished this bridge stands as a historical landmark for many tourists to walk on every day and provide a great focal point to the city.

One of the last things we did was walked to the big square where there was an astronomical clock and a statue of Martin Luther in the center. This area was filled with many restaurants, shops, and even an individual that was from the lovely school up north. We decided to yell out an O-H but somehow he fought the dying urge to yell back the I-O to finish it off.

After the tour we decided to go out as a group to a restaurant called the Fat Cat. Here we were able to get off our feet for a little bit and relax after walking on our old aging legs all day. So far this trip has exceeded all the expectations that I have had and I cannot wait to see what is in store in the coming days!

by Kylie Sturgill and Sarah Roberts

This morning was designated as free time for the group to do whatever they wanted to do. With the nonstop go, go, go attitude, this morning was definitely spent by sleeping in for most. It was definitely an important time for all of us to catch up on sleep. After some much needed “z’s” we checked out of our hotel at 12 pm and headed off for lunch and some free time around the city. Most of the group stayed together and walked around the city together, but some opted to just hangout around the hotel at a sit-down restaurant. Kylie and I were part of the group who chose to walk around and found ourselves in the Marienplatz. For those who don’t know, the Marienplatz is basically a courtyard with a huge building with a clock tower that does a show at the hours of 11 am, 12 pm, and 5 pm with little figures. There’s also an option to take an elevator up to the top of the bell tower for a fee of 3 euros. Given that it was a beautiful day, we decided to see the landscape of Munich and pay the 3 euros.

In the background of this picture, you might be able to make out the Alps! This obviously was the best view of the Alps with the city of Munich in the foreground.

This picture was also taken from the tower of the Marienplatz where you can really see the colors and architecture of the city. The yellow building in this picture is the Theatine Church, which was partly destroyed in World War II, but reconstructed shortly after. Now, it stands as a Catholic Church that has mass every day, where locals and visitors can come together and worship. In the distance on the left third of the picture, you may be able to see a really tall tower. This tower is part of the 1972 Olympic Village, where we visited the day before. We find it crazy that the Olympic village was about 15-20 minutes from the heart of the city, but we were still able to spot it from the top of the Marienplatz tower.

(Pictured from left to right: Kylie Sturgill, Sarah Roberts, Erin Langermier, Mckayla Waterman, and Madison Fields)

This picture was taken in front of the Marienplatz. The five of us girls asked a local to take a picture of us for our memories. All five of us either played a sport in college or currently playing a sport in college, which I think is quite awesome. It’s crazy how we all knew of each other from the athletic community, but really didn’t have the chance to bond until we took an adventurous trip to Europe!

After we walked around Munich, the whole group got on the bus to head towards Allianz Arena. This was the highlight of the day for a lot of people in the group as there are a lot of soccer fans in the group. We met with our tour guide, Anna, who gave us a grand tour around the magnificent arena. We started by going inside the arena, where a senior soccer match was being played. We sat in the lower bowl of the stands and competed against another German tour group to see who could make the loudest echo. Obviously, we won. She gave us some insight into how much tickets cost and where the fans sat, for both visiting and home teams. What we found most surprising was how inexpensive normal tickets where compared to the sky box seats, which had to be purchased for five years and cost up to half a million dollars a year.

From there, we went downstairs into the press room, where the team managers were interviewed after the games. It’s important to note that the players are always interviewed in a separate room. Bayern Munich’s reach is so large, that they even had two rooms specifically for  the visiting teams’ translators.

Next, we went to the home team, Bayern’s, locker room. We were all surprised with the simplicity of the locker room. Anna told us that it’s purpose was to keep the players focused on the game. We then walked out to the player’s interview room where two Audi’s were parked to show the sponsorship Audi has with Bayern. All the walls in this room were covered with other sponsor’s names such as Lufthansa, Allianz, and Adidas. We took this opportunity to take a group picture in front of the Bayern locker room.

Lastly, Anna took us to the outside of the Arena where she explained the material of the outer dome. She even passed around a piece of material that made up the dome. She also explained that there are 300,000 LED lights that fill the outer ring of the Arena. It is always lit in red for Bayern or white for the German national team. We made a quick stop at the megafan store, where some people chose to buy some Bayern gear. Then, we got on the bus to start our four hour trip to Prague.Halfway to Prague, we stopped at Waidhaus, a small town close to the Czech border for dinner. Many of us chose to get pizza, which is definitely not like American pizza. There was definitely some language barriers away from the city that really made us appreciate hand signals and pointing. It was cool to get away from the city and see how beautiful a German town, not full of tourists was.
The rest of the two hour bus ride was spent either sleeping or having a heated discussion over current hot topics in college athletics with Dr. Graham. Time flew by, and soon enough we were in Prague! We checked into our hotel and are headed to bed for another action packed day tomorrow!

by Nick Schommer and Tyler Albright

by Madison Fields

CMH ——> EWR ——> MUC

We all arrived at the airport on Friday at 8:30 AM! The airport was not very busy so we got through security relatively quick, leaving us time to get snacks and of course, a travel necessity, Starbucks.

We had a two hour flight from Columbus to Newark, where we had some time to kill before our next flight to Munich. To pass time a group of us sat down and ate lunch and after that I did some homework. The group is starting to get to know each other and we are all so excited to get to Munich and begin the trip.

We arrived in Munich at around 7:30 after a 7 hour flight! We all tried to sleep on the plane, but it proved to be a little, so most of us were rather tired. But there was no time to rest, we had a lot of plans! The breakfast bar at the restaurant is so cute filled with pastries, lots of fresh fruit and of course Nutella. From breakfast we headed on our bike tour of Munich.Our tour guide was very good and he lead us on a three hour tour!

We saw many historic buildings and statues, one of the prettiest being the church.

From there we headed to a beer garden. The bike ride to the beer garden was through a beautiful park where you can find nudist, lots of students, and people river surfing. At the beer garden we all grabbed lunch, many of us opting for snitzchel, sausage, pork knuckle and giant pretzel. We enjoyed our meal and than headed for the end of our tour.

Following the bike tour we went back to the hotel before heading to the 1972 Olympic park. Just when we got there, it started raining; however it was very cool to see where the memorable games were held and view in person the groundbreaking stadium.

After the Olympic park we had free time for the remainder of the night where a good chunk of us decided to go to a restaurant! We all got sausages and pretzels. A German lady came up to us immediately when she saw us eating our sausage with our utensils; she told us we must eat it with our hands! Overall, it was an excellent first day. I can’t wait for the remainder of the trip.

From May 18th-28th, KNSISM 3798 (European Model of Sports) will be traveling to Germany and the Czech Republic. Visit this site for daily updates on our trip (written by students in the class).